3Dawn

Hello, I'm new to the arduino forum. I am looking for help to control my R/C car (Team Associated RC18B) with my Duemilanove. I can't seem to get the motor to move at all. The car has this motor:http://www.teamassociated.com/parts/details/21210/

and this speed controller:http://www.teamassociated.com/xpdigital/parts/details/29136/

I have been able to intercept the signal coming from the receiver and analyze it on Pin 8. I found some code that reads the number of Ticks. I think these ticks represent the pulse length sent to the ESC. This is what I know about the tick numbers:If the between 3040 and 3055 the transmitter is "neutral".Greater than 3055 it goes forwardLess than 3040 and it goes in reverse.

I've measure the voltage that gets applied to the motor when I am not intercepting the signals. At neutral the motor sees 7.2V but doesn't turn. When I begin to accelerate the voltage rises to about 7.5 V. In reverse the voltage goes from -0.0 to -7.2V.

By the way, I have the arduino ground same as the battery voltage, and have only tried to send signals on various digital pins.

I've tried using the servo sweep example in Arduino and some other sketches from other posts with regards to ESC controllers and nothing has worked.

Can anyone give me any suggestions of things to try?Is it possible to convert the ticks to understand what kind of signal the ESC is looking for?

It probably runs off the same sort of signal as a digital servo (which I'm not really familiar with, but I'm sure google will turn up examples of people using Arduinos and other micros to control them).

The ESC looks like a standard pulse position control device, the standard servo library should drive this fine.What connections have you made from Arduino to the ESC, The ESC has RED, Black and White wires to go to a normal RC receiver where did you connect these wires on the Arduino?If you have an oscilloscope you should see the pulse on your PWN pin go from 1ms to 2ms apart to cover the range of the conroller. 1.5ms is the neutral position.What type or Arduino are you using and which PWN pin did you use for the ESC control signal?

3Dawn

Ran, I am able to plug in the steering servo and use the standard servo sweep example without a problem.

Zoomkat, yes, I tried one of the posted codes that does the arming sequence. The interesting thing is they refer to beeping once it is armed. My doesn't beep - ever. Even when using just the standard pistol transmitter.

Peter, power line is untouched from the ESC to the receiver (straight connection I mean). I tapped into ground so that the Arduino is on the same ground as the battery. I clipped the white wire. I got my readings from the white wire coming from the receiver which is how I got my data. I tried then using various sketches to send data to the esc on the white wire through the PWM 9 line on the Duemilanove.

Here is my code that I used to read the receiver info. I'm still learning the Arduino programming code and thought I understood it until I got this code. I hardly understand any of it but I'll attach it in case it helps.

Sonicdh

Hey 3Dawn, I'm also interfacing a Duemilanove with my RC car. I'm running a HPI E10, though, so it's more of a Driftduino. Haha. Glad to see you got it working. I used different code to test and work out the range of my ECS, though. I got it...somewhere, don't remember. It may even be one of the example sketches. lol Anyways, I'll post it up here if you're interested.